Interview with Set Things Right

Set Things Right are a five-piece post-hardcore band from Belgium that I like a lot. I have discovered them completely by accident a little bit more than a year ago, at Jera On Air Festival (Netherlands), where they opened the main stage. I have to say I’d already felt like there was something great about this band. Indeed, their performance was memorable even if there were only a bunch of kids in the audience, even if it was 1pm and the small festival ground was barely busy. It was both emotional and brutal, with a real sense of involvement. I have been following Set Things Right since then. Now after a few ’empty’ months struggling with personal issues, they seem today to be back and on top form. Check out this interview we did with them!

– Hi, first of all, could you introduce yourself to those who don’t know Set things Right?

– You’ve been silent for a few months recently for some reasons out of your hands but it seems that you’re back even stronger now, how did you manage to get through these hard times?

It was not easy. There was definitely a lot of uncertainty during those few months. Our singer was really sick, we weren’t able to find the perfect bass player, … The future of Set Things Right wasn’t really bright. But in the end our will to continue doing this helped us get through it. We found a great guitar player, our previous guitarist picked up the bass, and Tom recovered after 8 months. In the end, our dedication to the band helped us pull through.

– You are now working on your new album, and even worked on it at the Outhouse studios, can you tell us more about this experience?

That is correct. We’ve got more than enough material ready and we’re in the middle of writing more and more, and improving on stuff that has already been written. It’s an exciting process! Recording at Outhouse studios was a great experience. The studio itself is known for the great bands that have recorded there (Architects, Your Demise, Enter Shikari, etc). The producers knew exactly what we wanted, so it was great to be able to work with them.

– What’s the story behind Set Things Right? When did you feel like this was becoming serious and decided to take it to the next level?

We took Set Things Right seriously from the very first second we spoke about starting this band. We were all in other bands before hand, and all of them failed due to the lack of ambition from the other members of these bands. In this band, we only wanted to work with people with the same ambitions, and do things the right way from the start, and that actually explains our band name.

– I enjoyed watching your new video for your new song “Don’t Close Your Eyes”, what’s the idea behind it? How was the recording?

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it ! The concept of the video is set around loneliness, and how it can drive someone to breaking point. Life is too short to waste precious time. We all need to move on in our lives. All the members of the band, and probably people reading this too, have gone through dark times in their lives, and forgot to move on and live their life.

The lyrics of the song are multi-interpretable. We encourage that each person takes their own meaning from the lyrics and applies it or relates it to a situation in their life. To us, the lyrics are about sanctimony, seeing the worst in a person close to you, and also admitting that you are the same as them in many aspects. The chorus talks about a lame excuse for your actions.

– When I listen to this song, I feel like you’re well on your way to bigger things. We can also take as an example your recent partnership with Monster BE. How do you feel about this?

Being endorsed by Monster means a lot to us. It’s really great to have their support and to see how stoked they are on the new song! We’re looking forward to working with them and seeing what the future brings. We definitely have a lot of plans, and we’re going to try and make a lot of them happen before the end of the year.

– Are there any artists you look up to? Where do you get your inspiration from?

Set Things Right is a band with members who take their inspiration from a lot of different genres. All these musical influences together make this band sound the way it does. Of course we all like bands like A Day To Remember and Parkway Drive, just to name the biggest bands in our genre, but also some of us get inspired by bands like ‘Blink 182’ or ‘Tool’, or even ‘Despised Icon’ and ‘Seasick Steve’.

When it comes to playing music live, we also take inspiration from great performances like The Chariot or Story Of The Year. We definitely like our sets to be as energetic as possible.

– It’s not easy to make your mark nowadays, especially in your genre, how is the creative process inside the band, knowing this?

We’re fully aware that it is not easy to leave your mark as a band in this genre. There are many bands trying to do exactly the same thing and it gets a bit cluttered at times. What we do is we stick to what we love musically and work as hard as we can to break out from the crowd. We try to not follow the hype by writing what we like, and by doing so, we try to distinguish ourselves from other bands. We also try to give a memorable live performance, so people will remember us.

– It seems like you are now trying to expand your sound outside your country, how important is it to you?

We feel it’s extremely important. We really want to take our music as far as we can go and to places we’ve never been before. We’ve been playing shows in our home country for 4 years now, and we feel it’s time to start trying to make our mark elsewhere as well. Also we want this to be our day job, and by staying in Belgium, that won’t be possible.

– Belgium is a country that has always supported alternative music and still does, however and paradoxically, local bands struggle much more than international bands, how would you explain this?

There is a pretty large metalcore and hardcore scene in Belgium, which is a great thing. There are a lot of great bands making great music, but unfortunately, there is a lot of division and lack of support as well. People will walk out while you’re playing simply because you’re not « heavy » enough or not « their style of hardcore/metalcore/whatevercore », and if they stay to watch you, they can very often be extremely judgmental towards your band and it’s frustrating to see. That doesn’t go to say that there aren’t people here that genuinely are there to support local bands and have a good time at shows, because there are many as well. It’s great to talk to those people after shows and see how supportive they are.

Another factor towards this is also that many people would rather go to see an international band than a local band. This is understandable, seeing as most international bands come maybe twice a year, whereas a local band would be much easier to see another time. Also if you go to a show of ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ or ‘While She Sleeps’, or to a festival like Groezrock and Graspop, there are thousands and thousands of people. However, if you go to see a really good local band, there usually tends to be a maximum of a hundred people. A lot of Belgian people just don’t know their local bands, and the Belgian media isn’t really helping this problem.

– If you could change something in your music scene in order to make it better, what would it be?

Definitely less judgment and just enjoyment and appreciation for the bands that are playing at the show you are at.
We would also get more airplay on tv and radio, so that mainstream audiences can listen to the genre of music that we play. Bands like ‘Korn’ and ‘Slipknot’ have been played countless times on the radio, so why should that be different for us?

– What are your main career goals? How would you like to be remembered later?

We want to take our music as far as we can, to as many places and to as many people as humanly possible. We are all pretty ambitious people with high hopes for the future, we have no idea whether they will come true, but we’re sure as hell not going to back down any time soon.

We hope people know us now and will remember us later as 5 dudes that always kept being themselves and always did what they wanted to do.

− What’s next for Set Things Right? Can we expect more touring?

We’ve got a bunch of exciting plans for the rest of the year and onwards, we’re working right now on making those plans more concrete. We will definitely be touring soon, but no dates are currently planned just yet. We’re also working on finishing material for the new album, making it as good as we can make it!

-Is there anything else you would like to add?

Thanks to everyone who has checked us out. Like us on facebook, let us know what you think of our video, and we hope to see you at a show sometime in the near future!

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Based in "mainland" Europe, we particularly focus on up and coming acts from all over the world and especially Europe, because we truly believe that the alternative music scene in our area is rich and promising. We aim to show more accessibility and create a relationship between our readers, the artists we support and ourselves.